2025-03-07 20:57

Deal involves CK Hutchison's 80% stake in Hutchison Ports with an equity value of $14.21 bln Deal to be analyzed to ensure protection of public interest in two ports strategically located near the Panama Canal Separate audit of CK Hutchison's concession ongoing Head of business chamber in Panama says deal might spur port infrastructure expansion PANAMA CITY, March 7 (Reuters) - The Panama Maritime Authority, which oversees shipping and port infrastructure in the country, will request all legal and financial documents from a key transaction between CK Hutchison (0001.HK) , opens new tab and a consortium backed by BlackRock (BLK.N) , opens new tab , minister to presidency Juan Carlos Orillac said on Friday. U.S. BlackRock announced this week that a group of investors, including Global Infrastructure Partners and Terminal Investment, agreed to buy most of the port business of Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison, including its 90% stake in Panama Ports Company, which operates the Balboa and Cristobal terminals under a 25-year concession. The maritime authority is expected to analyze the transaction, which gives control of the two ports strategically located near the Panama Canal to the BlackRock-backed group, at the cabinet's request, to ensure that public interest in the terminals will be protected, Orillac added in a release. A separate audit of CK Hutchison's port concession, which was renewed in 2021, is yet to be completed by Panama's Comptroller General office. The CK Hutchison-BlackRock broad deal involves the Hong-Kong firm's 80% stake in Hutchison Ports with an equity value of $14.21 billion. However, the conglomerate will receive more than $19 billion following repayment of some shareholder loans. Some U.S. lawmakers have said that CK Hutchison's control of the Panama ports represents a security risk that might jeopardize the Panama Canal's operations, backing up President Donald Trump's threat on taking over the waterway, which was returned by the U.S. to Panama in 1999 under a neutrality treaty. The ports are not part of the canal nor needed for vessels to pass through the interoceanic way, which is mostly used by ships departing from or heading to the U.S. The Panama-owned canal is operated by an autonomous entity, while Panama's Maritime Authority oversees the ports and Panama's vessel registry. "My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we've already started doing it," Trump told the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, following the deal. Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino said Trump was "once again lying" in a social media post on Wednesday. "The Panama Canal is not in the process of being reclaimed ... the Canal is Panamanian and will continue to be Panamanian!" The head of Panama's business chamber Consejo Empresarial Logistico, Daniel Isaza, said the CK Hutchison-BlackRock deal might encourage the expansion of port infrastructure in Panama. "The administration of the Balboa port opposed the construction of other ports in the Pacific and introduced multiple lawsuits that halted the construction of the Corozal port," he said. "A new administration capable of making new investments to increase port offer is positive for the country." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/panama-request-legal-financial-documents-ck-hutchison-blackrock-port-deal-2025-03-07/

2025-03-07 20:53

NEW YORK, March 7 (Reuters) - This was originally published in the Reuters On the Money newsletter, where we share U.S. personal-finance tips and insights every other week. Sign up here to receive it for free. Caffeine-addicted consumers are in for a bitter wake-up call. (Full disclosure, this newsletter will be loaded with puns.) The price of coffee is surging. Arabica, the most popular bean, used in most ground roasted coffee, soared 70% in 2024 and nearly 20% this year to an all-time high above $4.30 per pound on February 11. Robusta – the second-most popular bean that is often used in instant coffee – surged 72% in 2024 and peaked at $5,847 per metric ton on February 12. But caffeine connoisseurs cannot kick the habit. They may even drink more coffee than is produced globally in 2025 – for the fourth time in the past six years. To save money, I try to coordinate morning schedules with my in-house barista (a.k.a. husband), who even roasts his own coffee beans, which he buys from Sweet Maria , opens new tab! He usually makes me a cappuccino at home before I head out into the world. On a recent episode , opens new tab of our Econ World podcast, host Carmel Crimmins talks with commodities correspondent Marcelo Teixeira to find out the reasons behind the jump in coffee bean prices (weather is a big one!) and how it may affect consumption. Their conversation is worth listening to. And this article explains all of the inflationary factors brewing in the coffee world right now. Do you find yourself making more coffee at home? How much do you spend a week on coffee purchases? Tell me all about your coffee habits! Write to me at [email protected] , opens new tab. IS THE PET SET THE NEW JET SET? Nobody told me this when we got a dog, but one of the truly hidden costs of pet parenting is paying for someone to take care of our pooch when we travel. In fact, some pet owners are shelling out more for pet care than they spend on their own vacations. Indeed, when our family went on a vacation in December, the cost of pet sitting ($75 per night for 10 days) rivaled the price of my plane ticket. Recent research from TrustedHousesitters , opens new tab shows that Miami tops the charts, with pet sitting rates averaging a staggering $163 per night. Austin, meanwhile, is the most expensive city for cat boarding, with rates close to $60 per night. To save money, we often do a pet exchange for overnight and weekend trips with friends who live a few blocks away. Our toy poodle CJ stays with them when we are out of town, and their miniature poodle Luna stays with us when they travel. For longer stays, we share the same pet sitter, who gives us a price break when the “girls” are boarded together. Do you have any tips to manage pet sitting costs? Let me know at [email protected] , opens new tab. READ, WATCH AND LISTEN Like what you're reading? Subscribe to On the Money here. VIDEO OF THE WEEK Wondering what wine to pick? AI gets your best match Decantalo, a Spanish wine e-commerce company, showcased their smart wine bar at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona where AI helps customers select the right wine based on their preferences. Watch here. Cheers! New newsletter alert! Looking for more on finance and markets? Subscribe to our enhanced daily markets newsletters: Morning Bid U.S. by Mike Dolan and Trading Day by Jamie McGeever. Mike and Jamie provide fresh insights and in-depth analysis to help you make sense of the key trends shaping markets. And keep an eye out for Reuters' new markets and finance commentary vertical, coming this spring. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/coffee-addicts-get-ready-an-expensive-wake-up-call-2025-03-07/

2025-03-07 20:53

Trump rails against Canadian tariffs on US dairy, lumber Trump says he wanted to help automakers for a month US tariffs may rise over time, Trump says Higher effective steel, aluminum duties take effect on Wednesday WASHINGTON, March 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday railed against what he called tremendously high Canadian tariffs on dairy and lumber, and said his administration could soon impose reciprocal tariffs on Canadian products. "Canada has been ripping us off for years on tariffs for lumber and for dairy products," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "They'll be met with the exact same tariffs, unless they drop it, and ... we may do it as early as today or we'll wait 'til Monday or Tuesday." Trump also mentioned India's high tariff rates, but said India had agreed to lower its import duties. The comments add to Trump's trade pressure campaign against the Canadian government, which he accuses of failing to stop the flow of fentanyl across the northern U.S. border and of unfairly taking advantage of the U.S. market. Most of the $1.6 trillion in two-way U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico crosses borders duty free under terms of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, which Trump signed in 2020. Among the few exceptions are Canada's high tariffs on dairy products that are part of its decades-old Supply Management system to protect Canadian dairy farmers. The system also includes import quotas and domestic production constraints to support prices. The USMCA deal provided limited duty-free quotas for U.S. dairy products, but for anything above these levels, tariffs on specific products can exceed 200%. Washington for years has unsuccessfully challenged the way that Ottawa has allocated the USMCA dairy quotas. Trump said Canada was charging a tariff of 250% for dairy products and a "tremendously high" tariff on lumber, adding that Canada had been "very difficult" to deal with. The U.S. already charges combined anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties of about 14.5% on Canadian softwood lumber imports. Trump last week ordered a new national security probe into global lumber imports, which may add significantly to U.S. lumber tariffs. On Thursday, Trump suspended tariffs of 25% imposed this week on most goods from Canada and Mexico over the U.S. fentanyl crisis, for 30 days. These would have pushed up the U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber to nearly 40%, a move that the National Association of Home Builders says could add , opens new tab $7,500 to $10,000 to the cost of an average single-family home. In a Fox Business Network interview aired earlier on Friday Trump said he had granted the 30-day break for goods compliant with a regional free trade deal to help automakers. But he added that the reprieve was a short-term measure and tariffs could go up over time. "I thought it would be a fair thing to do, and so I gave them a little bit of a break for this short period of time," Trump said in the interview with Fox News's "Sunday Morning Futures" to air on Sunday. Trump said that on April 2, reciprocal tariffs would be implemented to equalize any duty rates between the three countries. "I wanted to help the American carmakers until April 2nd," Trump said. "April 2nd, it becomes all reciprocal. What they charge us, we charge them. It's a big deal." ADJUSTING TARIFFS White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNBC that under the reciprocal tariff plan, the U.S. will match both tariff rates of other countries and non-tariff barriers. Navarro said U.S. tariff adjustments would reflect "in the aggregate, the unfairness embedded in the higher tariffs and non-tariff barriers that countries impose on us." He added that those tariff adjustments would be made through industry-specific and country-specific investigations. Asked in the Fox Business interview whether businesses could get clarity about his tariff plan, Trump said: "Well, I think so. But, you know, the terms could go up as time goes by, and they may go up and, you know, I don't know if it's predictability." There are multiple other Trump tariff actions in play. Next Wednesday, Trump's administration will effectively raise tariffs on steel and aluminum by rescinding longstanding exemptions for duties of 25% on steel and raising the rate to 25% for aluminum. This will heap more duties on imports from Canada and Mexico, the biggest foreign suppliers of the metals. The move also subjects hundreds of downstream products to those tariffs, from steel wire and fabricated structures to bulldozer blades. Canada's industry minister, Francois-Philippe Champagne, told CNBC that Ottawa was having difficulty understanding what needed to be done to avoid U.S. tariffs. "It seems that the goal posts keep moving, and that's what makes it difficult," Champagne said. "So I just think that we need to get back to a place of normalcy in our relationship between Canada and the United States." Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-tariffs-could-go-up-over-time-fox-business-interview-2025-03-07/

2025-03-07 20:51

Fees could backfire by swamping major U.S. seaports, imperiling exports and sticking everyday Americans with higher prices MSC, the biggest container carrier, says it could skip small U.S. ports to reduce fees World Shipping Council calls on U.S. to reconsider plan LOS ANGELES, March 7 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's plan to revitalize the U.S. shipping industry could heap massive costs on ocean transport operators and spawn a new round of supply chain chaos around the world, executives told Reuters. Trump's administration aims to pay for an American shipbuilding comeback with help from potentially hefty port fees on Chinese-built vessels as well as ships from fleets with China-made vessels, according to a draft executive order seen by Reuters on Thursday. The levies could hit virtually every ship calling at U.S. ports, foist up to $30 billion of annual costs on American consumers and double the cost of shipping U.S. exports, according to the World Shipping Council (WSC), which represents the liner shipping industry. "Policymakers must reconsider these damaging proposals and seek alternative solutions that support American industries," WSC CEO Joe Kramek said. While the stated goal of Trump's plan is to revive the moribund U.S. shipbuilding industry and weaken China's global shipping dominance, the dour outlook from industry executives shows how Trump's pro-U.S. policies can sometimes bring on unintended consequences that run counter to his stated goals. The plan is a "curve ball" that could be very damaging for ocean carriers and their customers, Jeremy Nixon, CEO of container ship owner Ocean Network Express (ONE) (OCEA.O) , opens new tab, said at S&P Global's TPM container shipping conference in Long Beach, California, this week. In the near term, ship owners could make fewer U.S. port calls to limit fees. A flood of extra cargo could clog up those ports, making it harder to get imports to retailers and manufacturers and exports on ships, executives said. The Trump plan could also put pressure on companies to redeploy their global ship fleets so that vessels that weren't built in China are refocused on the United States market - something that could cost time and money, they said. MSC, world's largest container carrier, could skip smaller ports like California's Port of Oakland - an important gateway for exports of fresh beef, dairy products and almonds - to mitigate the impact, Soren Toft, the company's CEO said at TPM. Such moves could swamp the nation's biggest ports and freeze out the smaller ones, risking a repeat of early pandemic backups that hobbled global trade flows, executives warned. "It would be very difficult for us and our partners to absorb it all at once," Beth Rooney, director of the U.S. East Coast's largest port of New York and Jersey, said of the potential volume spike. PUNISHING UNKNOWN PAST MISTAKES "If a regulation comes, let's at least make it forward-looking and not penalize us for mistakes we've done in the past, which we did not know were mistakes," MSC's Toft said, referring to fees tied to China-built ships. Meanwhile, French container carrier CMA CGM, which has a vessel-sharing alliance with China's COSCO Shipping (601919.SS) , opens new tab and counts retailing giant Walmart as a top customer, is expanding its U.S.-flagged American President Lines fleet and exploring having ships made here. "We are in talks with several shipyards to see how long it would take and at what cost," CEO Rodolphe Saadé said in an interview published on Friday. Denmark's Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) , opens new tab on Friday told Reuters it was premature to comment on new tariffs or fees, because everything changes so quickly, and nothing is decided. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/trumps-shipbuilding-plan-could-upend-ocean-cargo-industry-companies-warn-2025-03-07/

2025-03-07 20:13

Promises C$5 billion for exporters for two years C$1 billion for agriculture and food industry C$500 million set aside for low-interest loans Tweaked rules for job insurance to prevent layoffs OTTAWA, March 7 (Reuters) - Canada on Friday unveiled billions of dollars in aid and other forms of support to businesses and people expected to be directly affected by U.S. tariffs. These relief measures involve over C$6.5 billion ($4.52 billion) of financial aid to help companies tap new international markets, absorb the impact of losses, access easy loans and prevent layoffs, a team of ministers said. Canada relies on the United States for 75% of its exports and a third of all imports. Its reliance on trade for economic growth leaves the country vulnerable in case of a protracted trade war. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration imposed 25% tariffs on most imports from Canada and Mexico earlier this week, before announcing a suspension of the charges until April 2 on goods covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade. "We are moving ahead with these changes despite yesterday's pause because businesses and workers need assurances right now," Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon said at a news conference on Friday. "We may not know what our American neighbors will do, nor what new tale they will tell, but we are united." Exporters hurt by tariffs can access funding from a pool of C$5 billion this year and next to help them diversify to new global markets and absorb losses from non-payment, currency fluctuations, hits to cash flows, as well as overcome barriers to expansion, the government said in a statement. Another C$1 billion is being offered to reduce financial barriers for the Canadian agriculture and food industry, it said, adding that C$500 million has been set aside for low-interest loans. The government also relaxed rules under the Employment Insurance Work-Sharing Program, a scheme which gives employees job insurance if they agree to work fewer hours and share available work while employers agree to retain staff. Policymakers, politicians and economists have said the tariffs could hurt sectors including steel and aluminum, automotive, aerospace, farm and dairy, with potentially devastating consequences for the Canadian economy. NOT LIKE PANDEMIC Exports to the U.S. account for roughly 18% of Canada's GDP and more than 2.4 million jobs in Canada are dependent on business with the U.S. While just 1% of US GDP is reliant on exports to the north, the U.S. is particularly dependent on Canadian oil. "We will rally to defend our values, our solidarity, our sovereignty and all hardworking Canadians, because Canada is free, Canada is sovereign, and Canada is forever," MacKinnon said. Still, MacKinnon said the effect of tariffs would not be like that of the COVID pandemic. "It would be a more slow, rolling economic impact," he said, adding the government does not expect to offer support to people like it did during the pandemic. Trade Minister Mary Ng said the ministry was making efforts to diversify Canada's export market and by the end of this year, Canada would surpass its previous goal to diversify its non-U.S. exports by 50%. It is also talking to other countries to get access to their markets, she said. ($1 = 1.4385 Canadian dollars) Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/markets/canada-launches-c5-billion-program-help-exporters-reach-new-markets-2025-03-07/

2025-03-07 19:48

BUENOS AIRES, March 7 (Reuters) - Heavy rains in the Argentine port city of Bahia Blanca, southwest of the capital Buenos Aires, left at least 10 dead and caused substantial flooding on Friday. More than 260 millimeters (10 inches) of rain fell within a few hours, destroying bridges and causing asphalt roads to collapse, the city said, adding that more fatalities could not be ruled out. "All available resources are being deployed with municipal teams, the provincial government, the navy and the Argentine army to provide assistance," Bahia Blanca authorities said on X. The storm forced the evacuation of homes and health centers in the major commercial port city some 600 km (400 miles) from the capital. Social media images showed mothers fleeing a flooded hospital with their newborn babies. Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and Defense Minister Luis Petri visited the city, posting images on their social networks of military trucks patrolling the dark, flooded city at night. President Javier Milei canceled his scheduled activities in Mendoza province on Saturday, said spokesperson Manuel Adorni. He did not say whether Milei would travel to the city. Economy Minister Luis Caputo said on X that the government had authorized 10 billion pesos ($9.2 million) of financial aid for Bahia Blanca, home to 300,000 residents in Buenos Aires province. Sign up here. https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/argentina-storm-leaves-six-dead-bahia-blanca-port-city-media-report-says-2025-03-07/